Experience Manifesto

Silverjet: In the Air

We've now begun our flight out of Newark and it's continued to be an excellent experience overall. They do have a Customer Experience Director and it certainly has been the kind of experience that people enjoy having. Although my seatmate, who flies traditional business class far more then I do missed the hot towels that he apparently usually gets. But even he agreed that given the cost of traditional business class and a ticket on Silverjet, there's no complaints about the experience we're getting. Some observations:

They've reserved one of their bathrooms for woman only and I think you'll see more of this in the future. I don't know how they enforce it, but I know the woman of the Bathroom Blogfest would be proud!

I wish they had seatback pockets or something to help organize your stuff. I've noticed this on several business class flights, so maybe they think we'll just sleep and we don't want to take out our laptops and other items from our briefcases.

Wish they had a better movie selection. Yea, I know I'm really nitpicking, but they could have a better selection of both current and classic movies. I don't think any of the current movies are newer then maybe March of this year.

It's funny, they've now added an outlet to every seat and I want to complain that they need more. Man we get spoiled fast!

In their in-flight materials they say they want to re-create the magic of air travel as it once was and to treat you to an experience thatis as close as possible to providing you with your own private jet. They should also mention that they do this without charging you an arm & a leg!

So now I'm going to sit back, watch a movie and enjoy my dinner. For anyone looking to fly the Newark to London route, make sure you check out Silverjet as an alternative to regular coach & business class. For someone like me who usually books late, there was almost no difference in the airfare but a world of difference in the travel experience!

I'll be blogging from the Cannes Lions, so look for updates starting sometime on Tuesday.

Checked in at Silverjet

Arrived at Newark to check in for my trip to the Lions in Cannes. After a little confusion finding the Silverjet check-in (they're temporary lounge is by baggage claim), I found where I was going and started my actual Silverjet experience. Folks, this is really the way to travel. While the lounge may be temporary, it doesn't feel that way at all. They have quite the selection of refreshments -- I'm enjoying some champagne right now -- and the staff here has been great. I spoke at length to Helen, the station manager here, and everyone seems genuinely interested in making sure we have a great flight. To think of what I'd be going through flying coach to Nice! My only complaint right now is that they don't carry the NY Post here, which is my daily fun paper to read!

While flying Silverjet is certainly more expensive then traditional coach fares, it's significantly less expensive then flying business or first class on standard commercial carriers. And, so far, the level of service is, well not even on the same level. Last minute booking prices seemed to be in the $1,400 range round trip. Remember for full disclosure, I am flying on a comped ticket. Although right now, only Helen knows that here.

Helen explained to me that their second plane is on its way, to add an additional departure from Newark. Clearly they are building their client base and there's no doubt that there's an audience for this much more civilized way of flying. I'm not sure I'd pay for Sydney to travel with me this way, but my wife & I would certainly enjoy the flight!

The lounge is now filling up and it appears that people who have flown Silverjet in the past know that you have some flexibilty with the 2+ hours before international travel rule. Since it's 5:30 and we haven't left for the gate to our 6:30 departure, I'm guessing that we have our own security checkpoint. That alone creates a real travel value.

This trip will give me the chance to experience some real extremes. After flying in the lap of luxury on Silverjet, I get to take Easyjet from Luten to Nice, so I'll do both travel extremes! Fortunately, I end in Cannes, so how bad of a trip can it be, right? Of course, I don't have a hotel there yet, but hey, I hear the beach is a lovely place to sleep!

I'll continue from the flight.

Cannes Lions 2007

I'll be heading out this weekend for my first visit to the Cannes Lions and I'm pretty psyched about it. we're going to be participating in a presentation by Alan Cohen, Executive Vice President, Managing Director, Initiative Innovations and Entertainment at Initiative. We'll be bringing a demo of our recent in-cinema work, so make sure to look me up if you're there! I'll also be blogging from the conference, trying to give you the latest thinking, as well as the latest party news!

The biggest entertainment companies in the world have reinvented advertising, inspiring a revolution across industries. The future of advertising is content on any device; computers, TVs, phones, PSPs, iPods - the 21st century consumer doesn't discriminate the source or the device.

Consumers now programme their lives. Therefore, transforming advertising into content is the only way to remain part of their mix. Best-in-class examples of thinking in technology, new media and traditional media reinvention, that are blurring the line between advertising and content, will be showcased in this seminar. The audience will take a journey that shows how television networks and film studios have created a model that has impacted the future of advertising across all categories.

The presentation looks at techniques that use content to connect with the hard-to-reach. Examples include a look at entertainment companies, as well as several other adventurous brands that have begun taking advantage of this brave new world, where content is king.

What does this mean for the future of the advertising community, as media agencies become content distribution experts and ultimately, marketing partners to their clients?

Link: Cannes Lions 2007.

My First Silverjet Experience

A few months ago, I met the then US head for Silverjet (www.flysilverjet.com), a new business-class only airline flying between Newark and Luton Airport in London. After our meeting, she sent me a note saying that she would give me a free ticket to fly if I ever wanted to take the trip.

So, since I'm going to Cannes next week for the Advertising Lions and thought that I would her a call and take her up on her offer. I sent several e-mails with no reply and finally had Lindsay in my office give them a call. As luck would have it, my contact is no longer with them and I gave up my hopes of an enjoyable trip in business class.

But no! I found out that they would honor her offer, even though it would've been really easy for them to say "Sorry, but since Andria's no longer with us, we can't do that any more. They've been extremely helpful working with me on the trip and if the level of service I've received so far is any indication, it should be a great trip!

I'll make sure to report on how the rest of the experience goes.

Good Price + Bad Service = No Sale

There's a gas station maybe 200 feet from my house, that I pass every day. Right now, they're selling gas for $2.79/gallon, which, given that it's Jersey, means that it's that price for full serve. Even in our neck of the woods, it's at least 10 cents cheaper then any other station around.

So, I went there the other day and got in line to get some gas. Pulled up to the pump, popped open my gas cap and waited. And waited. And waited. I waited while at least 4 other crs pulled in, got gas and left. And after waiting while everyone else got served, I finally just left. It stopped being about the money and started being about me and how I was being treated. And I discovered that staying there and being ignored wasn't worth 10 cents a gallon. I moved on and got my gas down the block.

Having the best prices around doesn't always matter when you ignore your customers!

Drew McLellan: The Marketing Minute

I am very excited to be one of the 104 authors who contributed a chapter to this book and look forward to it being released later this summer. In keeping with their unusual take on creating a book, they've asked for help in pricing it when it's available. So, take a few minutes to look at the list on Drew's post (you can find links to all of the authors by clicking on "continue reading" below) and see what you think it'd be worth. Then drop me or Drew a note with your thoughts.

About 8 weeks ago, Gavin Heaton and I conceived the Age of Conversation and put an ALL CALL out for chapter authors. In less than 7 days, 106 people initially responded and 104 actually followed through and wrote a chapter.

We're shooting for an end of June release (we're knee-deep in editing, design and author wrangling as we speak) so we need to make some big decisions. One of the biggest is price.

Here are the salient facts:

104 authors - all writing on their take/unique view of the Age of Conversation

Remarkable content (you're going to be delighted)

All original content (will not be released elsewhere for at least 6 months following launch)

All proceeds donated to Variety, the Children's Charity (monies will be given directly to the countries that align with our authors when there's a Variety chapter there)

Downloadable e-book

Dedicated to the life and spirit of CK's mom, Sandra Kerley

So...help Gavin and me. Tell us how much you think we should charge for the book and give us some rationale. (We'll take it all in and then make a decision.) So, show us some pricing strategy smarts.

Link: Drew McLellan: The Marketing Minute.

Advertising Age - Digital - Video Report: Mobile Marketing Stymied by High CPMs, Small Audiences

This is what's wrong with the whole advertising industry, they just won't let go of the past. CPM's are not the only way to sell advertising and worse then that, we love to take the lowest cost CPM thing and compare everything new with that. Wait, I take that back. The worst thing is that we keep looking at the new technologies and trying to make them work like everything else we've done. So everything that we can do on mobile gets compared to yellow pages. Why? Because that's the level of creativity that most of the advertising industry works on. And, it takes way to long to figure out how to really use these emerging tools to create something new. No, instead it’s we know about yellow pages, so the mobile phone must be just a new way to deliver yellow pages ads.

And folks, that’s why people don’t get engaged with the stuff we create. Because rather then look at what we can really deliver with all of this new technology, we simply use it to do what we’ve always been doing. How about using the cell phone to E-tail Your Retail and do something completely new? Because that would take some thought and creativity, wouldn’t it? Because that would take us really looking at what’s really good for the consumer rather then just delivering the same old crap we deliver over and over.

So can we stop for just a little bit with all of the CPM hand wringing and get on with creating some new ways of engaging the audience that works no matter what the CPM? Engagement is what it’s all about. Let’s break free of the CPM system because it doesn’t always work any more. And what does CPM really mean when some mediums deliver nothing for their CPM and other’s deliver a great deal. Let’s bring back creativity to how we do business, not just what we deliver to our clients. Put your head out the window and yell "I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to use CPM’s any more!"

I know we can do it if we try.

Overly high cost-per-thousand expectations and audiences too small to matter are stymieing the development of the mobile phone advertising business, according to media buying executives at this week's Mobile Marketing association Forum.

High CPMs
"Most of the brands for whom we do investment advisory are not going to buy $60, $70 or $80 CPMs, even if that's what the market demand is right now," Eric Bader, senior VP at MediaVest USA, the country's fifth-largest media-buying agency, said about the cost of trying to reach a thousand people, a standard metric in ad sales.

"A lot of mobile activity is really competing largely against search and things like the yellow pages and yellow pages online," he told the gathering at the Times Square Marriott Marquis. "When you start to look at how effective search and the yellow pages and directory services are, that's who [mobile is] going to be competing against and those CPMs are down in the $8, $7, $4, $10 range."

'Hard to justify'
"And while we all understand the virtues of what mobile advertising can deliver," he said, "at [$60-$80] CPM levels, it's really, really hard to justify mobile against other opportunities to get the message to the same target."

Link: Advertising Age - Digital - Video Report: Mobile Marketing Stymied by High CPMs, Small Audiences.

Random Thoughts on the Road

I've been Denver for the day, having some meetings here. Haven't been here in a while and forgot what a cool city it is. Have to come back when I have time and explore it again. I mean, you gott'a love a city where they sell Moon Pies and fried gizzards at convenient stores! But, I do have some travel nits to pick:

I stayed at the Marriott Courtyard in Englewood which really was lovely. The staff was very courteous & helpful and everything was very nice. But, after paying close to $200 for the room, do they really think I want to pay $4 for a bottle of water? The shame was that they had a pretty reasonable priced snack set up in the lobby. Just one of those things that really gets my goat!

Enterprise charged me $1.70 usage fee for the rental. I thought the rental fee was for using the car. If I only had to pay $1.70 to use the car, what was the rest of the rental fee for?

I didn't know how long I needed to be here, so I booked the last flight, leaving here at 11 PM. What a huge mistake that was! I should've booked the earlier flight and then switched to the later flight if I needed to stay. I'm on Continental and paid about $220 for my RT ticket. But to change to the earlier flight, I would need to pay almost $400 more! It's outrageous! And when I complained, the peron at Continental customer service told ne that they make a lot of money on the $100 change fee, which makes up for the low cost of the ticket I bought. The airlines are one industry that really needs a huge, experience shake-up!

Here's a rough one. I had a middle seat out here and the gentleman on the aisle could've used two seats. And that makes it tricky to complain. After all, everyone has the right to fly. But what about my right not to have to sit sideways the whole time? How do you guys handle such situations? Should someone that large be required to purchase two seats? I don't have an answer (and the way I eat Entermann's, I made need two seats in the future!), but as the skies get more crowded and America gets more obese, this issue will need to be addressed at some point in the future.

Man they need better charging etiquette at airports. You see one person hogging several outlets! There clearly aren't enough available at airports, but we need an Outlet Code of Conduct! Anyone else interested in that?

So, I'm waiting to see if I can get on the 5:40 flight and, if not, I get to wait here until 11:55 tonight! I sure won't be pleasant in the morning if that happens. Ah, the joys of travel! But I'll certainly let you know if Continental becomes my new best friend!

Happy trails!

Business: Malls going to online service

New technology that is an interesting twist on our thoughts about e-tailing your retail. NearbyNow enables consumers to search all products, brands, and sales available at local shopping centers using the Internet or mobile phones. As they say on their web site: We turn online shoppers into in-store buyers. Kind of a reverse SCANBUY Shopper. No doubt that we'll see more of this kind of technology in the future.

Most shoppers today read up on products and check prices on the Internet before buying. Now mall stores have a new tool to get in shoppers' faces online before they make up their mind.Westfield Group is launching a service that enables buyers to do product searches and compare prices in their local mall stores before leaving home. Shoppers can get coupons, spot sales and find out if their nearest mall store has their size of a specific item that can be reserved for pickup. Or bargain hunters can ask to have sale price alerts for stuff they want text-messaged to wireless gadgets during a shopping trip."We're bringing together the store experience and the online world, " said Scott Dunlap, chief executive of NearbyNow Inc.

Link: Business: Malls going to online service.

Link: NearbyNow: Turn Online Browsing into In-Store Buying.

Change in Comments

Once again, we've been hit with comment spam, so I've had to turn on comment authentication. Sorry that I had to do that, but we were getting 20 or so spam comments a day. Once I get off the spammers lists, I’ll see about turning it off again. Wonder how they’re getting past the CAPTCHA requirement?